Friday, December 16, 2016

Wednesday evening, I was listening to the local NOAA weather station on 162.4 MHz (WXJ42 in Meriden) with the ELAD FDM-S2/SW2. The waterfall display showed activity on all seven NOAA weather channels, which is typical from my location. I also noticed another signal down the band a ways... on 161.76 to be exact.

I tuned in the signal and was surprised to hear the voice of Joe D'Ambrosio, who does a sports talk show on WTIC AM (1080 kHz). It sounded like he was doing the show on the air, but on FM instead of AM and on 161.76 instead of 1080. So I grabbed the nearest transistor radio and tuned it to WTIC AM. Lo and behold, there was Joe D doing his show, but delayed by about 15 seconds from what I was hearing on 161.76.

My initial thought was that I was hearing a radio relay from the WTIC studio to the WTIC transmitter. The studio is in the valley below my QTH about 6 miles away, while the transmitter is 12 miles away.

I revisited 161.76 MHz Thursday evening and the signal was still there, but now the volume of the signal's audio was low. After about 15 minutes, the volume of the signal's audio jumped up in strength as its contents changed from talk radio to news. This just confused matters.

Researching the mystery, I found in the 1994 edition of the Connecticut Scanner Guide that 161.76 was assigned to Chase Communications. Chase was the previous owner of WTIC, so that made sense.

How they are using 161.76 is still a mystery. I am sure there is a simple explanation, but I don't know what it is.

W218AV, a translator for WMNR on 91.5 Mc in Warren, Connecticut, transmitting 250 watts, 22 miles to my west-northwest.

CFNV on 940 kc in Montreal, Quebec, transmitting unknown power, 269 miles to my north-northwest. This is a new station and is reportedly running tests at this time (mostly French music, occasional French voice station identifications and no commercials). This station is strong; not only did I log it from the home station, but I heard it clearly on my car radio throughout my sunrise 35-minute commute this morning.

Equipment used: ELAD FDM-S2 / ELAD FDM-SW2 receiver, an 80-meter inverted Vee for the AM/MW band and an ICOM AH-7000 discone antenna for the FM band.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Tuned to 620 kc on the way to work today and found a cacophony of stations vying for dominance of the frequency. I heard bits and pieces of various stations, but the one station that stood out from the rest for the longest period of time was a new one for me: Stephen King's WZON transmitting 5 kW from Bangor, Maine, 304 miles to the northeast. Equipment used was the excellent stock radio and antenna in my 2007 Subaru Outback Sport.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Driving to work Friday morning (1030 UTC), I was monitoring 680 kc for anything unusual. The usual (WRKO) was overtaken by the unusual for about 30 seconds: WAPA transmitting 10 kW from San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1655 miles to the south-southeast. Equipment used was the stock radio and antenna in my 2007 Subaru Outback Sport.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Yesterday, as I headed out to buy groceries in my 2007 Subaru Outback Sport, I hit the button preset for WLNG on 92.1 MHz on the AM-FM radio and drove down the north side of my 1,000-foot mountain, which is not favorable to WLNG, 50 miles to my south-southeast. Yet, WLNG hung in there as I descended the mountain and continued my drive through the relatively flat river valley of ESPN-land.

I was paying more attention to the traffic than the radio, but sitting at a red traffic light about 2 minutes after my descent, it occurred to me that the female announcer now on the radio was not a voice I had ever heard on WLNG. In passing, the announcer mentioned the station's call sign: WOMR, which is on the tip of Cape Cod, about 145 miles to my east-northeast.

After the light turned green and I continued on my journey, WOMR hung in there for about a half mile, then gave up the frequency to WLNG.

For what it's worth, WLNG and WOMR run similar transmitter outputs, 5300 and 6000 watts respectively and neither is line-of-sight by any means in ESPN-land, so there was some enhanced radio conditions yesterday morning.

This is not the first time that I have heard WOMR in my neck of the woods, but it is always interesting when I do.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Radio conditions on the AM band were very good over the weekend and I have top-of-the-hour recordings that will take me awhile to peruse for new station loggings. So far, I have found four new ones from 0600 UTC on October 1.

KFSW in Fort Smith, Arkansas, transmitting 1 kW on 1650 kc, 1240 miles to the southwest.

Radio Rebelde near Havana transmitting 5 kW on 1620 kc, 1388 miles to the south-southwest.

WCOJ in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, transmitting 5 kW on 1420 kc, 187 miles to the west-southwest.

WITK in Pittstown, Pennsylvania, transmitting 500 watts on 1550 kc, 148 miles to the west-southwest.

I also logged one new navigational beacon

YRR in Greely, Ontario, transmitting 25 watts on 377 kc, 283 miles to the north-northwest.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Conditions were excellent at the 0500 UTC top-of-the-hour on September 6... so good that it took me two days to listen to my recording of that top-of-the-hour. It resulted in eight new stations in the log including WDAE in St. Pete, Florida (1095 miles). I also heard previously logged WWL in New Orleans (1256 miles).

Friday, September 2, 2016

Walking the dog in the rain Wednesday morning, I noticed that one leg of my 80-meter inverted Vee antenna was missing!

Trying to investigate further with a leash in one hand and an umbrella in the other, I discovered that the antenna had come undone after the wire passes through the end insulator and wraps back around itself. It is an easy fix and I will get to it this weekend.

I gathered up the pieces and wrapped the loose end of the wire around the base of my tower to get it out of the way. By the way, the bungee cord that spanned the air between the end insulator and an eye hook bored into a tree was nowhere to be found.

And for what its worth, I listened around the LW and MW bands and did not notice much of a loss of signal strength using the busted antenna with the ELAD FDM-S2 receiver.

WWVB was loud and clear on 60 kHz. The Fort Collins, Colorado, time signal transmits 50 kW, 1661 miles to the west-northwest. I might have been able to log it before, but this was the first time I tuned around that part of the band. (I checked a few older top-of-hour-recordings and sure enough, I heard WWVB on each recording).

I also heard an AM station at 216 kc at 0400 UTC, but I could not identify it. It was too weak for intelligence, but it definitely was not English... probably French or Spanish. Radio Monte Carlo is the only station listed for 216 kc, so that is what I probably heard... with transmitters in nearby France (Roumoules) using 900 kW, 3855 miles to the east-northeast.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

I added the following 16 new stations to the log during the past few days using an ELAD FDM-S2 SDR receiver, an 80-meter inverted Vee antenna (for HF) and my 2007 Subaru's stock radio and antenna (for the FM logging) an ICOM IC-AH7000 discone antenna (for VHF/UHF).

YUY on 219 kc transmitting 500 watts from Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, 540 miles to the north-northwest

QB on 230 kc transmitting 500 watts from Quebec, Quebec, 360 miles to the north

OW on 236 kc transmitting 14 watts from Ottawa, Quebec, 289 miles to the north-northwest

YVB on 243 kc transmitting 90 watts from Bonaventure, Quebec, 576 miles to the north-northeast

YXR on 257 kc transmitting 400 watts from Earlton, Ontario, 538 miles to the north-northwest

YQA on 272 kc transmitting 400 watts from Muskoka, Ontario, 396 miles to the northwest

YLQ on 289 kc transmitting 550 watts from La Tuque, Quebec, 398 miles to the north

QT on 332 kc transmitting 1000 watts from Thunder Bay, Ontario, 929 miles to the northwest

GW on 371 kc transmitting 500 watts from Kuujjuarapik, Quebec, 967 miles to the north-northwest

JT on 390 kc transmitting 450 watts from Stephenville, Newfoundland, 838 miles to the northeast

Friday, August 19, 2016

After feeding the cats at 0900 UTC, instead of going back to bed, I checked the AM band, but found nothing interesting. So I tuned to the navigational beacons and heard a half dozen beacons I had logged before including ML in Monroe, Louisiana, on 392 kc, 1232 miles away.

I heard a very weak beacon on 384 kc, so I hung in there for awhile and finally heard F8, a new logging from Victoriaville, Quebec, transmitting 25 watts, 310 miles to the north.

Equipment used was an ELAD FDM-S2 receiver and 80-meter inverted Vee antenna.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Late Friday afternoon, my daughter yells out that there is a bear in our back yard. Sure enough... I look out the ham shack window and there is a black bear walking around the premises.

This is my third bear sighting here at the WA1LOU QTH on the top of Compounce Mountain and I have seen evidence of other visits in the past. It sure makes life interesting and for the next few days, I will make sure that all is clear before I go outdoors.

Friday, July 29, 2016

Most of the time, all I hear on 1700 is WRCR out of Ramapo, NY. However, WRCR was missing from my top-of-the-hour recording at 0900 UTC today. Instead, I heard Radio Mega WJCC running 1 kW out of Miami Springs, FL, 1666 miles to my south-southwest.

1700 is a great frequency for long haul DX. It's a 21st Century "clear channel" with only six stations licensed for 1700 in the USA. Except for WRCR, they are all over 800 miles away.

Equipment used was an ELAD FDM-S2 SDR receiver and an 80-meter inverted Vee antenna.

And finally, the mystery station: WAAF on 1420 kc. WAAF, "Boston's Rock Station," is an FM-only station, but I heard it loud and clear on 1420 AMat 0900 UTC Monday. Was this a test or a pirate or what?

Twenty-four hours later, WBSM (New Bedford, MA) dominated 1420, but there was a station that I could not ID playing rock music under WBSM. Driving to work two hours later, WLIS (Old Saybrook, CT) dominated 1420 on my Subaru's receiver, but again I could hear an unidentified rock station under WLIS.

Friday, July 15, 2016

When I can hear the Hudson County (NJ) TIS in Jersey City on 1710, it bodes well for AM band DXing. Such was the case recording the 0200 UTC top-of-the-hour Wednesday night. As a result, I made four new entries in the log... two of them were amazing!

Monday, July 11, 2016

In exchange for some crisp new $1 bills, my wife and I kept diaries of our television viewing for a week. My diary was easy: Law & Order binge-watching with an occasional switch to see how badly my Scarlet Hose were losing.

My wife's diary was more complicated. She switches channels all day long and I think she spent more time filling in the diary than viewing the shows she was logging.

After the week was up, we sealed the diaries and mailed them back to Nielsen.

I thought that would be the last we would hear from Nielsen, but lo and behold, in April, Nielsen asked us to do it again. But instead of keeping TV diaries, they wanted us to keep radio diaries. We agreed and a few weeks later, an envelope arrived with some crisp new $1 bills and blank diaries.

My wife's diary was easy. She seldom listens to the radio, so she did not have much to log. And I played it straight and did not log any ham radio stations, nor any broadcast stations that I heard while tuning between 530 and 1710 kHz.

In addition to my "normal" radio fare (WCBS, WINS and WTIC on AM; WLNG and WAQY on FM), I could have included the flamethrowers out of the Midwest and South like WBT, WGN, WJR, WLW, WSM and WSB, as well as a variety of peanut whistles from all over the Northeast. I could have even included Cuba's Radio Rebelde a couple of times. But I want to keep receiving those crisp new $1 bills, so I only logged the stations I actually listened to for information and/or entertainment.

And after a week, we sent our diaries back to Nielsen. I wonder if we will be hearing from them again next year.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

I am having a great time using the ELAD FDM-S2 SDR receiver. I particularly like the "time machine" feature, which I have been using to record the whole AM broadcast band at the top of the hour and then play it back to hear all the recorded stations.

In the "I learned something new" department, switching to LSB or USB, I was able to identify stations that were down in the mud and unidentifiable in the AM mode.

I am also trying to find out which overnight hours are the most productive. Here is the tally, so far:

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Thank you for your suggestions on how to fix the interference problem I encountered while using the ELAD FDM-S2 SDR receiver with my MacBook Pro computer.

The source of the noise seemed to be the computer's battery charger/power supply, but all my attempts to fix the problem failed until I noticed that my Heath coaxial switch was not grounded. I assume its connection to ground had been disconnected while I was rearranging the furniture and I forgot to reconnect it.

Reconnecting the switch to ground made a big difference and eliminated most of the noise on the AM/MW band.

- WTTM on 1680 kc in Lindenwold, NJ, transmitting 1 kW, 162 miles to the SW.

- CKAT on 600 kc in North Bay, Ontario, 455 miles to the NW.

All were heard using an 80 meter inverted Vee antenna.

I am very happy with my new radio, but there is a problem: interference from the MacBook Pro battery charger/power supply. The interference is so strong that only the strongest AM stations are above the noise.

The cable between the charger and the computer is the problem because the noise disappears completely when I disconnect the cable from the computer even though the charger is still powered.

I installed ferrite cable clips on the cable, but that made no difference.

I wrapped the cable 20 times around a toroid ferrite core, but that made no difference.

One solution that works is to use the ELAD-MacBook Pro combo without the battery charger. This gives me a few hours operating without the interference, but sooner or later, the battery will need to be recharged.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

I have owned Macintosh computers since they were originally released in 1984. Way back when, I had a clunky DOS emulator on one of my desktop Macs. I cannot recall why I bought it because I don't remember using it much... maybe because it was so clunky.

Windows emulators/enablers for the Mac have been around for awhile. I have never had a need for one until now, so I had not paid much attention to them and had to educate myself quickly.

I read a few articles comparing what was available and found myself on Parallels' website where there was a link to download and try out their enabler for 14 days. I downloaded and installed the enabler without a problem, but there was not much I could do with it because it needed Windows.

My computer at work runs Windows 7, so I am familiar with that OS and figured I would be more comfortable running 7 on my Mac rather than another version of Windows. But I asked around about Windows 10 because the Parallels enabler was being touted as ready for Windows 10 and folks on the Yahoo ELAD group (elad_sdr_en) said the FDM-S2 software ran fine on Windows 10. So I ordered Windows 10 from Amazon and received the installation USB flash drive two days later.

There were no gotchas installing Windows under Parallels, nor installing the FDM-S2 software onto Windows under Parallels.

I connected the ELAD FDM-S2 receiver to my MacBook Pro, powered up the receiver and started the software. The software started up on my Mac just as quickly as it started up on the Windows laptop I tried it out on and has run perfectly under Mac-Parallels-Windows since I have installed it four days ago.

Some observations:

I can run Windows 10 and Mac OS X simultaneously, which is something I did not expect.

Windows 10 starts up faster on my Mac than does Windows 7 on the Lenovo laptop at work.

The FDM-S2 software crashed a number of times on the Lenovo laptop running Windows 7. It always crashes if I try to expand the GUI window beyond a certain point and it has crashed numerous times while playing back on-the-air recordings. So far, the FDM-S2 software has not crashed on my Mac.

I have a shortcut on my Mac's desktop for the FDM-S2 software, which loads Parallels, Windows 10 and the FDM-S2 software with just one click.

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Its software is Windows-based, but the gent in the ELAD booth assured me that it would run on a Mac under a Windows emulator. Even if it did not, I had some old Windows laptops at my disposal that I could use, although I preferred to run it on my Mac because empty space on my radio desk was lacking,

Back at my Hamvention hotel room, I checked the contents of the box containing my purchase. In addition to the receiver, there was a USB stick containing the SDR sofware and documentation, two BNC-to-SMA adapters to mate the receiver's HF and VHF SMA connectors to antennas, a USB cable, a USB Y-cable, a cloth bag for storing and transporting the receiver and four stick-on feet to attach to the receiver.

After returning home and catching up, I installed the software in a laptop running Windows 7. The installation was quick and easy without any problems.

I connected the receiver to the laptop and to my 80-meter inverted Vee antenna, then I powered up the receiver and started the software. The software loaded quickly and soon I was staring at an impressive graphical user interface (GUI), but I could not hear a thing and the display indicated that nothing was being received, as seen in the image above.

My first thought was "dead on arrival" and I was not a happy camper. Thumbing through the manual did not provide a solution and then I noticed an on/off button in the lower left corner of the GUI! I clicked it once and, voila!, I could hear plenty ― what a relief!

Without reading the manual, I fumbled around and managed to tune the receiver to the AM broadcast radio band. My first impressions were that the receiver was as sensitive and perhaps more sensitive than my Elecraft KX3 on the AM band.

That was promising, but I did not play with the receiver much because I wanted to concentrate on getting the software up and running on my two-year-old MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch laptop.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

The 6515 was my first transistor radio ― a circa 1960 Christmas gift from my parents.

Jay's review confirmed that the 6515 was an excellent receiver in its day. Back then, I didn't know a QSL from a Q-Tip, so I didn't know any better and did not log anything, but that radio pulled in stations from all over the left half of the USA and beyond.

Jay's review also revealed that the 6515 was an expensive radio. I had no idea my folks paid $60 for it ― that's about $480 in 2016 dollars!I have no recollection what happened to my 6515 ― it is long gone. However, in a nostalgic moment, I acquired one via eBay for about $15 ― that's about $2 in 1960 dollars. Cosmetically, my eBay acquisition is in pretty good shape. Functionally, it needs some work. Replacing the electrolytic capacitors would probably bring it back to life... a project for another day.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Memorial Day afternoon, I was relaxing on the front porch listening to random shortwave stations as my C.Crane CC Skywave receiver scanned the bands. I logged four new ones including WRMI, Radio Miami International on 19 meters, which was broadcasting an interesting shortwave listener's program at the time.

At the end of the broadcast, they announced their address for reception reports, but I was conversing with my wife and missed the details. So I visited their website and found their e-mail address for reception reports. I cannot recall the last time I sent a reception report ― certainly not in this century, but I could not resist the ease of sending a report by e-mail and so I did.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

The Dayton Hamvention is this weekend and I will be there attending forums, buying ham radio necessities, receiving the Hamvention's Special Achievement Award and staffing the TAPR booths (451-454) in the Ball Arena of the HARA complex.

During my commute to and from and around Dayton, I will be running OpenAPRS from my iPhone, so watch for me on your APRS maps.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

I saved this QSL for last because it is for a medium wave station reception rather than a shortwave station reception and the validity of the verification is incomplete, which comes as no surprise due to the nature of this particular radio station.

I received Radio Americas, also know as Radio Swan, in early 1967 (my logs are misplaced, so I don't know the exact date). In response, I received a signed QSL card that is otherwise blank and does not mention the frequency, time nor date of my reception report.

A program schedule accompanied the QSL card and both were contained in an envelope postmarked Miami, but with two conflicting return addresses and a fake Swan Island postmark.

In early 1967, I heard Radio Americas operating on 1160 kc. Honduras-to-Connecticut (almost 1600 miles) on the AM broadcast band is an excellent catch in anybody's logbook, but what made this one more interesting was that Radio Americas was supposedly a clandestine operation run by a secret government agency that was trying to undermine the Castro regime in Cuba.

At the time, the Radio Americas story was just speculation, but it was pretty exciting stuff for this teenager during the height of the Cold War and the era of Goldfinger and 007. Just the words "clandestine radio" sounded exciting and mysterious back then. Needless to say, I was shocked when the Radio Americas QSL card arrived in the mail, since I did not think that spies acknowledged their clandestine operations.

Radio Americas was indeed a CIA operation broadcasting US propaganda into Cuba during the 1960s. The station claimed to transmit from US territory, but the FCC claimed that it knew nothing about it!